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Where’s Amarildo?

Nobody knows, nobody saw

On this 14th, the case involving the disappearance of the bricklayer’s assistant Amarildo de Souza, has completed two months without any progress in the investigation. Amarildo, 46, a resident of the Favela da Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro, married and father of six children, was taken by military police for questioning in the Pacifying Police Unit (UPP) in the community and then was never seen again.

It is assumed that Amarildo was killed by the military police of the UPP and his body destroyed, a common practice in the poorest communities in Brazil, where state protection is missing, police violence is constant and there’s the action of armed groups (militia) that oppresses and threatens thousands of people and which control many local services since TV and Internet providers until distribution of gas cylinders.

In all protests that have swept the streets of Brazil and were violently repressed by the police at the behest of corrupt governments who fear the popular uprising and try of all costs to perpetuate themselves in power, the claim heard most was “Where is Amarildo?”

Two months later, nobody knows, nobody saw. Amarildo de Souza is now just another number in the cruel statistics of the silent violence practiced in Brazil against the poorest population: about 90,000 people were reported missing from 1992 to 2012.

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, also wants to know from the Brazilian authorities “Where is Amarildo?”